Tim Worstall

Yes, yes, I know ethics is a county near London which is all that advertising companies know about the concept. However, we do seem to have a company that is at least attempting to approach the concept of getting bloggers to advertise to their readers in an ethical manner - ebuzzing.

Start with the PayPerPost concept that an advertiser pays a blogger to post on some specific subject or product/service. Then add all the things that PPP didn’t have in order to make it ethically kosher. For example, use the no follow tag to make sure that it is indeed advertising to the readers rather than gaming Google. Then make sure that all posts are checked over before they are actually let free on the interwebs. Insist upon disclosure that it is indeed paid for and finally, insist that bloggers do in fact only advertise or post on subjects that they do in fact endorse.

Hmm. It’s going to be tough to game this system in the same way that one has the others, isn’t it? Which is of course the point.

We’ll have to see how this works out. It might be an interesting way to add to the beer budget, it might not be. I think what will really be the telling point is how many advertisers really do want to advertise to blog readers, rather than game Google.